


godsend my heroes

by hiroshimalovers



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, another study in poe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiroshimalovers/pseuds/hiroshimalovers
Summary: Sometimes we are heroes because of the things that have happened to us. Sometimes we are heroes because of the things that haven’t happened, and sometimes we are heroes because of who we cannot stand to be.





	godsend my heroes

**Author's Note:**

> all i can ever write about is poe! i'm back after nearly two years, with another incredibly similar story because i just saw the most recent star wars, and i loved his scenes.

Poe Dameron would never call himself a hero. He became a pilot because of his mother, as she took his hand at six years old and told him of the galaxy above his head, naming stars and whispering sweetness. He looked forward to flying, knowing that her belief in good burned the brightest when she was above planets and between galaxies. 

Sometimes, he takes out the letters she wrote him on the long weeks she was away, fighting, burning bright. Sometimes, he lets himself remember the sound of her voice, and when he flies, he lets the memory of her calloused hands guide him true. 

His mother's mind and heart both flew through the stars. His father was a fighter, and he remembers them both with a kindness that he forgets to apply to himself. Poe is a product of his environment, his determined and brilliant parents, and he is grateful for that, on the good days. 

On the not so good days, he knows in his heart that he is a child born of war. His parents were those with hearts of warm stone, determined in their convictions and a solid force outside of them. Shara and Kes took part in and endless war, and Poe is their infinite contribution.

Poe would never call himself a hero. He would barely call himself a soldier, but he knows that he is a pilot. He is made for the skies, or maybe the skies were made for him. Somehow, through conviction and dedication, he is a leader. In free, open space, he is a man who likes to know things and when people are under his direction, he wants to know everything to keep them safe.

It is with a desperate passion that Poe dedicates himself to Leia. She has known his mother, and fought alongside his father. She has known trenches and courtrooms and war in a way separate from the rest of the resistance. In a family strife with tragedy, she is a beacon who loses her family to the fire, her brother to her son and her husband to the stars, but she has never lost her spark. 

Poe doesn’t know if he has ever had a spark like hers, feels more like the embers left from a fire nights before. Leia is a heart to the rebellion, and Poe is a capillary, useful but not vital. Leia leads many, and among them, Poe learns to harness the ashes left inside of him. He loves her, as a mentor and a leader, and sometimes, he thinks she might love him back.

In the resistance, they are few and they are many. Poe has learned to pick up names quickly and remember desperately them in effigy. He has never given a name until Finn, and he knows this is one he will never be able to forget.

Poe barely knows how to be a friend. Like everyone, he is the sum of his experiences plus or minus the tragedy, and forgetting the in-betweens. He has never been the boy with a million friends, but he has been the man with a dozen allies and twice as many as part of his squad. He doesn’t stand up for others because he remembers what it’s like to be kicked down, but rather he doesn’t know how not to get to his feet and fight for what is right.

In some way, he has never known peace. He was born into war and grew up in the midst of an endless struggle between people, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but almost always caught in the grey of morality. He has never faced the worst, nor has he lived the best.

Poe refuses to lie down. He cannot stand not knowing, and he cannot allow the people around him to die because he didn’t do more. He has declared mutiny, he has fought against people with more age and power than he ever expects to experience.

Poe would never call himself a hero. He would never make choices because they lay in the lines of medals and bravery and endless applause, but rather because he believes so fiercely that they always need to try their best, against any odds that may occur, to get everyone out.

His mother didn’t get out. At some point, his father didn’t get out. Sometimes, he doesn’t feel like getting out, feels like laying down his joystick and his blaster and letting the unending waves the universe take him.

Poe would never call himself a hero because a hero is someone who wants to live to help people, not someone who would risk himself a thousand times over for another life because he doesn’t believe his own has any worth. War comes in spades, peace comes in queens and jokers, and he is a spade.

Sometimes we are heroes because of the things that have happened to us. Sometimes we are heroes because of the things that haven’t happened, and sometimes we are heroes because of who we cannot stand to be.

Poe would never call himself a hero.


End file.
